Last to Know: A Novel(59)

“We don’t actually believe Divon did it?” Harry asked, surprised.

“Of course not. We’re just letting him think we believe he did it.” Rossetti grinned. “Keeps a guy on his toes, thinking he might be indicted for murder. Might put him in a frame of mind to tell all he knows about whatever he knows. To a good cop, of course,” he added. Smugly, Harry thought.

“What about Fairy Formentor?”

“Divon’s mom was definitely murdered by a person or persons unknown, as they say. No one ever arrested. Therefore no prosecution.”

“And Divon was never a suspect.”

“Jeez, Harry, he was a kid…”

“It’s been known.”

Rossetti said, “The question is why was Jemima killed?”

“My guess, and yours, is Jemima saw something, or someone she shouldn’t have. Wrong place, wrong time, for her. Fact is, Rossetti, we have no conclusive forensic evidence, which means we have to pursue the intangible.”

“There you go,” Rossetti sighed. “What’s intangible?”

“Intangible, as you well know, means nothing we can see or touch. In fact it means, my good buddy, we have not a f*ckin’ clue.”

“I can only agree with that.” Rossetti put his feet up on Harry’s desk, took the emery board from his pocket, and began on his nails. It helped him think.

Harry said, “What happened to the wig?”

Rossetti looked up, raised his brows. “Bea’s wig? Never turned up.”

“Did we drag the lake?”

“Evening Lake? You gotta be kidding. Know how many square blocks that thing would cover?”

Harry did.

Rossetti took his feet off the desk, sat back, arms folded. “Oh, something I forgot to tell you.” He waited for Harry to ask “what?” Harry waited too.

Rossetti gave in first. “So it’s like this. Forensics found prints on the knife.”

Harry said, “I’ll bet they’re Rose Osborne’s.”

“Not only that, her son Roman’s. Now the boy probably used it to cut an apple, maybe, but I’d have bet good odds Wally was not the chef in that family. So why are his prints also on the knife found sticking out of a woman’s eye?”

“Oh, f*ck,” Harry said, thinking of Rose.

“Catching on,” Rossetti added. “Of course Rose’s prints were on the knife too, I mean that would be expected, it was her kitchen.”

“His kitchen too. A man might cut an onion to go on his burger, a tomato for his ham sandwich…”

“A throat for his fun.”

Silenced, Harry gave up trying to defend Rose’s husband.

“The question, though,” Rossetti said, “is why. We know, despite his books about murder and weirdos, Wally is not a psycho. He’s not a man who might simply kill for pleasure. And he’s up to his eyes in pricey lawyers all protesting his innocence.”

“Which I happen to believe,” Harry said.

Rossetti said, “There’s probably a dozen or more folks out there who might have been happy to see Lacey Havnel dead. She was dealing pretty big-time, cocaine and heroin. Cartels don’t like it when you cheat on them.”

“You think that’s what it was?”

Rossetti shrugged. “If you stayed away from Paris and spent more time at your desk like I do, you would have figured that out for yourself. As well as asking yourself who the f*ck else would want Lacey Havnel dead? Her daughter, maybe?”

Harry frowned at Rossetti. “You off on that tack again?”

“Mom had nine hundred thou stashed in the bank. In a checking account! Plus the house on the lake, and Lord knows what else in safe deposits that we haven’t found yet, and maybe never will.”

Harry was silent, thinking, Rossetti guessed, about Bea.

Harry said, “Rose Osborne came to see me, she told me Bea had gone to her house to beg her forgiveness. Bea asked to be taken back into the family. ‘The family I never had’ was how Rose said she put it.”

Rossetti stopped fooling with the emery board. He sat up. “And?”

Harry shrugged. “In effect, Rose told her to get lost.”

“How about that! I thought soft-hearted Rose would have fallen for the ‘poor little me’ spiel and taken her back ‘into the bosom of,’ so to speak.”

“Meanwhile, what about Wally’s prints on that knife?”

Rossetti shrugged. “And the son’s. It’s normal enough not to count as forensic evidence. We can go nowhere on that. Anyhow, why are you asking?”

“Wally’s behavior is too erratic to be dismissed. Drugs can get a hold of your mind, especially meth. It can change a person. We’d better keep an eye on him.”

“But he’s right there, living at home, with his wife. The lovely Rose.”

“Right,” Harry said, feeling the twinge of danger as he said it. “The lovely Rose.”





45


There was a knock on Harry’s door. Usually it was kept open but today he needed to be alone, to think. Something was troubling him, something he’d heard, seen perhaps, and couldn’t quite put his finger on. He called to come in and a uniformed cop put his head around the door.